


son of awake;

by solanin



Category: Saints Row
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Ending Credits Setting, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:05:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5973525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solanin/pseuds/solanin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It occurs to him, after all these years,  that he doesn’t remember what they look like. </p><p> </p><p>(Gat Out of Hell Reshape the Universe Ending).</p>
            </blockquote>





	son of awake;

**Author's Note:**

> written on 25.05.2015 - found it on a tumblr i never really used, lol
> 
> notes: popped out this dumb fic in the middle of the night after - actually, i don’t have any excuse. this thing just shat itself out. tried to keep the boss as vague as possible. gat out of hell ending spoilers; be warned as hecky

It occurs to him, after all these years, that he doesn’t remember what they look like.

 

Sure, there’s a shitty, graphite-smeared picture at the bottom of his drawer, when he realized their gaze and smile in his mind’s eye was growing dimmer and dimmer. It’s a fucking travesty: a mauled, scribbled scrap of an untalented artist’s third try at a masterpiece. And maybe that’s what they were saying in the first place, when they stepped out of a bright light with new hair and new eyes and new designs – it didn’t matter who they were, why they were, and where they came from.

 

Let it be known that Johnny is always the first to call them out on their bullshit.

 

Later, he will ask a professional in the office to recreate their image. She never quite gets the murderous, joyous gleam in their grin, but it’s enough. He pins it to the heart of his map and begins from there.

 

(They are the first person he looks for. They are the last person to be found. There is irony in this, Johnny acknowledges. In the very crevices of his being, he thinks that perhaps there is also foreshadowing.)

 

Johnny questions a legion of men, and nobody quite remembers the small young thing with not a word on their tongue but blood in their eyes. _A name_ , the witness(es) asks, tongue tripping over their fear. _Don’t you have a name?_ And he does, he does, but it’s never the right one.

 

(They tried to hide it, he remembers. They tried to hide everything, even though Johnny eventually unearths it all. Their name - their name was a card they showed only once. This is a memory carved like an insignia in a corner of his soul: their voice crazed with lilting laughter over the click-bang-bang gunfire, mouth forming incoherent syllables, mouth forming, _Johnny, Johnny,_ mouth telling – they tried to hide it, but he heard, and doesn’t it just fucking burn when he scours thousands of databases and files only to find out they lied. The fucking asshole.)

 

He tears off the article attached to Canada. The B – they’d never go north. Too many moose and nice people; not enough things to shoot.

 

“Are you looking at your wall?” Kinzie’s voice rattles through the door and into his thoughts. “Come _on._ We can’t have you all broody and maudlin for the debrief.” There’s still teeth to her every word, even though she’s soft around the center - they all are now. A little less hardened, a little less last hope of humanity.

 

(“We’ll never want for anything,” they said _say_ said, head twisting from Lin’s lap to look at the buildings towering over them with something like, like – They scratched at their scars like the chained at their shackles. “I’ll make sure of it.” Johnny wonders if they’re still so hungry, so _ravenous_. He cleans his guns and sharpens his blades and wonders why they haven’t devoured the world whole yet.)

 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m comin’.” He takes one last glance at the various dots, pixelated pictures, articles and papers littered throughout the wall, connected by strands of red thread bouncing back and forth between continents and through seas. Johnny steps out into the dimly lit hall, closing the door with a resounding click. He does not look back.

 

(The laughter is always in front of him, bounding between the shadows and empty hallways – _Johnny, Johnny,_ they crow. _My motherfuckin’ best friend, you know I’d do anything for you,_ right?)

 

“Damn right,” he says, and then, for posterity – “See you soon, asswipe.”


End file.
